tormented by thoughts of past and future.
But a few miles to the northeast, an invisible presence beyond the leafy treetops, the Mystic Mountains loomed like eidolons, ancient, enigmatic, evil. Within them slumbered Thendrun like some dormant beast, the sole remaining stronghold of the Fallen Ones. Their nearness banished peace from the fugitive princess.
'But you know full well you've no other choice,' the nun Ziore said. She spoke aloud, feeling that in her present mood Moriana needed sensory reaffirmation that she was not alone, though her mind was ever aware of the presence by her side. 'And what can the danger be? The Zr'gsz will have dwindled over the centuries and most of their magic is no doubt long forgotten. They could prove no great menace to the Realm, even if they harbored such designs – which I'm sure they no longer do.'
'The Zr'gsz are long-lived but their memories are longer still.' Moriana's voice hardened. 'I'm betting they haven't lost much of their power. I will need redoubtable allies to seize the Sky City by force of arms.' Ziore held still a moment, mulling this.
'You are right. But still, you mustn't worry. It's been ten thousand years since the War of Powers and eight thousand since your ancestors drove the lizard folk from the City. Surely after all that time they cannot nurse futile hopes of regaining their power? Their time is passed. If they are so long-lived, surely they are wise enough to acknowledge that?' Moriana shrugged. 'It's what I'm gambling on.'
'And you are thinking of your other recent gambles that haven't worked,' said Ziore.
'I… yes, you're right. Darl is no better, even after he and I went into that small village to purchase new clothing.'
'He accompanied you. That is a sign of some progress,' pointed out the genie. 'It is the first indication of interest in the world around him since his defeat.'
'Our defeat.' The words fell like bitter droplets from the princess's tongue. 'And he showed only passing interest in these.' She looked down at the new clothing. Moriana had selected a wardrobe of the kind she had come to fancy in her own years of faring through the Realm: rugged tunics that laced up the front with leather thongs, canvas breeches with dog leather linings sewn inside the thighs to cushion the chafing of long hours in the saddle. The colors were russet, muted orange, burnt umber, the earth tones she favored, that set off her golden hair and vivid green eyes so well.
'Darl still thinks of you as his fairy princess,' pointed out Ziore. 'Seeing you clad thusly might have shattered his illusions.'
'Damn him!' flared Moriana. 'I'm not a toy to be put on display. I'm a woman and a princess. Not a fairy princess but one with the need to regain my City. How dare he pretend I'm anything but what I am?'
'Not all have your drive, Moriana,' quietly pointed out Ziore. The genie paused. Moriana felt fleeting touches over the surface of her brain, feathery tickles, light samplings. 'And Darl reads your thoughts as surely as I. He realizes the burden you carry over Fost Longstrider.'
'I killed the man I loved. And all for this.' Her fingers went to the black and white Amulet hung around her neck: the Amulet of Living Flame, which legend said would bring the dead back to life. For the promise of eternal life she'd killed Fost, driven her knife firmly into his heart, as they fought for possession of it.
'Your reasons were noble. The Amulet will allow you to best Synalon. Without it, your powers can never be used. She knows so much more of the black arts than you. Even if she slays you, with that in your possession you will live on and succeed.'
'Dar! reads more than guilty knowledge,' Moriana said bitterly. 'He knows I can never love another man as I loved Fost. Not even Darl Rhadaman.'
'You are wise, my child. What you say is true. Dad's depression is great because of the loss. He hoped to win your favor with victory. He knows no other way of gaining your heart. His most romantic gestures and words carom off the shell you've built around your heart.'
'I loved Fost' she said simply, a tear welling at the corner of her eye. She brushed it away, then rubbed the wetness from her finger onto the black and white Amulet. Even as her fingers touched it, the colors swirled in slow motion, black battling white for supremacy. 'You can love Darl – if you try,' said Ziore.
'I have my duty to the Sky City before me. After Synalon is defeated and I've regained the throne, then will be the time to consider affairs of the heart. Darl's withdrawal, painful as it is to me, isn't the worst of my problems.'
Though she had not spoken of it again since the evening of the battle, word had filtered through her small party that she intended journeying to Thendrun to ally with its denizens. That word was not well received. Her fellow refugees had begun slipping away, in ones and twos, walking away from sentry duty in the midst of darkness or falling back on the march until turning off unobserved into the woods. Among those who stayed there was talk; Moriana heard – or thought she heard – terms such as 'witch' and 'traitor to her kind' hissed behind cupped hands around the campfires when they halted for the night. 'I don't understand.'
Moriana started at Ziore's words, though they rang softly in the quiet of the woods. When Moriana writhed in the grip of a mood like her present one, the nun's shade would read her thoughts carefully unless Moriana asked her not to. The princess had made no such request. But she had forgotten that her dark musings were shared by another. 'What don't you understand?' she asked stiffly.
'Why the terrific resentment among the others about your going to the Fallen Ones? I doubt more than a handful of humans have so much as seen one in the eighty centuries since Riomar Shai-Gallri seized the Sky City. Why the intensity of feeling?'
Moriana stopped, allowed the forest stillness to settle about her for a dozen heartbeats before answering. 'Have you heard of the Watchers?' she asked.
'Well… yes,' answered Ziore hesitantly. 'My knowledge is second-hand through what I've overheard from others.'
'Then your education contains gaps,' said Moriana, grateful for the chance to speak of things other than her feelings for Darl and Fost. 'When Felarod and his Hundred drew forth the wrath of the World Spirit and broke the might of the Zr'gsz, they imprisoned the demon Istu sent by the Dark Ones to aid the Hissers in the foundations of the Sky City. This was only one of the deeds he did before the World Spirit departed. Some of the lava that has flowed in centuries past from the Throat of the Old Ones – Omizantrim – is a stuff called skystone. Worked properly with spelts known to Zr'gsz adepts, the skystone floats on air like chaff. The City itself is built on a huge raft of it. The much smaller war rafts the Hissers rode into battle were a source of their strength as important as Istu himself. So Felarod summoned up a creature from the belly of the earth called Ullapag, whose cry, though inaudible to humans, is death to the Zr'gsz. And to aid the Ullapag and insure that the Hissers should no longer have access to their skystone, Feiarod set a band of heroes, men and women strong and keen-sighted and skilled with bow and spear, to watch over the skystone flows until the Fallen Ones should be no more. These are the Watchers of legend.
'After ten millennia,' Moriana added, 'the descendants of the original Watchers remain on their lonely vigil at the foot of Omizantrim. Can you imagine the dedication that implies?'
'Yes, it disturbs me greatly. For three hundred generations to circumscribe their lives willingly to keep an ancient faith – it makes my own deprivation trivial, doesn't it?'
Moriana felt Ziore's bitterness at her own life. She could sense the troubling of her friend's thoughts and wondered if some of Ziore's gift had worn off on her. Being a nun in life following Erimenes's self-denying teachings and missing the rich realms of human experience had stunted her in many ways.
'Each person's problems, no matter how trivial, are enough and more for that person,' said Moriana, smiling wanly at being able to quote one of the genie's aphorisms back at her.
'But it's more than just the Watchers,' the princess went on. 'I take it you're not acquainted with children's fairy tales.'
'No,' Ziore replied. 'I was sent to convent at an early age. We had no time for such mundane trivia.' Her words rang as harshly as any Moriana had heard her speak.
'The favorite of them, even now, concerns the bravery and dedication of the Watchers in standing off attempts by the Hissers to regain their precious skystone mine. Whether there's any truth in them, I don't know. And when children cry or balk at eating their greens, what do mothers tell them? 'The Vridzish will get you if you don't behave!''
'So the Hissers are the legendary embodiment of evil to the people of the Realm.'
'And the Watchers the embodiment of heroic dedication,' said Moriana.
